Weight loss

Losing weight can be a difficult process - with weight loss pills and some commercial weight reducing programmes focusing upon restricting what you eat, rather than considering how you eat, or what you think about the food you are putting into your body.

We are constantly bombarded with TV programmes, advertising and social media feeds full of pictures of food, and the presence of these can make the temptation to veer away from healthy or intuitive eating very strong. We may have developed certain negative mindsets around what we put in our bodies too. Hypnosis for weight loss can be an effective method in challenging these mindsets and moments of temptation, and living a healthier life.

The aim of hypnotherapy for weight loss is to make you feel confident about your body, change negative thoughts about eating and help you lose weight responsibly without impacting your emotional well-being. By targeting the unconscious mind with powerful suggestion techniques, a hypnotherapist can help you develop a positive relationship with food and exercise which is key to healthy weight loss and long-term weight management.

Do I need to lose weight?

A lot of people insist they need to lose weight, whether they're overweight or not. The truth is, very few people are happy with the shape and size of their bodies, regardless of whether they need to lose weight.

Body confidence

While it is important for people to lose weight for health reasons if they are overweight, it's not good to feel ashamed about the need or desire to lose weight. Because body shape and size is so tied in with the western idea of beauty, people are constantly looking for 'quick fixes' to cut corners. Weight loss pills, fad diets and gruelling exercise regimes are just some of the ways people try to lose weight. What you have to ask yourself is - am I happy doing this? Can I carry on doing this for the rest of my life?

This is where hypnotherapy for weight loss can help. In order to change your body, you need to first change your mind. You have to ask yourself - why am I unhappy with my body, and why can't I lose weight?

How does hypnosis for weight loss work?

Hypnotherapy for weight loss is becoming increasingly accepted and people all over the world are finding it a beneficial means of maintaining a healthy weight in the long-term.

What happens during hypnosis for weight loss?

Your hypnotherapist will guide you into a state of deep relaxation.

Once your body and mind are fully relaxed, your hypnotherapist will be able to access your unconscious mind (the part of us that works all the time but that we're not necessarily aware of, i.e. innate instincts and survival mechanisms).

Soothing, carefully worded scripts can be used to explore a client's reasons for overeating and suggest new ways of thinking through visualisations. You have the control to reject any suggestions you don't feel happy with without any guidance from your hypnotherapist. See below for some of the techniques and visualisations they may use.

Over time - and a series of weight loss hypnotherapy sessions - you will learn how to replace your negative habits and eating patterns with positive ones suggested by your hypnotherapist.

“When someone is focusing on losing weight it is worth looking at the belief that has kept the weight in place for so long. Often we hold beliefs at two levels; at the conscious level we think good thoughts about ourselves, our worth and what we deserve as human beings; but unconsciously our habits give away to our emotional beliefs about ourselves.”

Hypnotherapy for weight loss techniques

While each case is different because everyone has their own reasons for wanting to lose weight, some suggestions you might encounter include:

Envisioning the body you want or the level of fitness/health you wish to achieve.

Imagining how you will feel with your new look and health.

Imagining yourself reaching that goal effortlessly.

Seeing how much you will have improved from today.

Imagining how energised and confident you will feel.

Realising that the more you exercise, the more you will want to exercise and the easier it will become to do so.

Whenever you get the urge to eat something unhealthy, or eat when you're not hungry, imagine not reaching your goal and think about how that will make you feel.

These are designed to empower you so that you can take control of your choices. Hopefully through weight loss hypnosis you will learn to enjoy the taste of healthy food and stop craving sugary, fatty foods. You should also learn to enjoy your body and not see it as a source of anxiety. By tackling those deep feelings that form the foundations of your eating habits, hypnosis for weight loss can help you adopt a healthier lifestyle and a happier mind set.

Your possible weight loss blocks

Lots of people try and fail to lose weight for a number of reasons. These reasons are often unconscious, making it hard for us to overcome them. Hypnotherapy for weight loss aims to expose these reasons, allowing clients to finally break through barriers that may have been preventing them from losing weight for many years.

Common reasons you might find it hard to successfully lose weight include:

You comfort eat

When we are babies we learn to associate feeding with the comfort of our mothers. Some experts believe this association never really leaves us. As we grow older and we take on more responsibilities, life can get more stressful and food can offer a reversion back to those early days of complete dependency. If you've ever found yourself reaching for a chocolate bar after a busy day, or ordering a takeaway when you feel lonely and sad, then you might be a comfort eater.

As a comfort eater you will find it more difficult to lose weight because you've let food become your coping mechanism and without it, you might not know how to deal with your emotions. Hypnotherapy can help to address this, helping you learn how to process negative emotions in a way that doesn't lead to comfort eating.

"Through the use of hypnotherapy you can reprogramme the negative messages about your weight that are stored in your unconscious mind and eliminate bad eating habits without the feelings of deprivation. You will understand the cause of any ‘emotional eating’ and learn how to meet emotional needs in healthy ways.

Cravings can be removed and your motivation to eat healthily increased, enabling you to lose weight at the correct and safe rate for you and maintain your ideal weight, naturally – without the gimmicks of the diet industry."

You eat mindlessly

In order to lose weight, you have to be completely honest about how much you eat and exercise. Even when you keep a food diary or use a food-tracking app, it's easy to forget about the odd snack here and there. Perhaps you pick at ingredients while you make dinner? Do you grab something on your commute to work, or tuck into a biscuit with your afternoon tea?

It's often these 'on the go' foods that catch us out but they really do add up. Even if you religiously stick to salad for dinner, conveniently ignoring all the things you eat in-between won't be doing you any favours. This type of mindless eating is something hypnotherapy for weight loss can help you to overcome.

You ban food

Like a mysterious box you're told not to open, eliminating certain foods from your diet can make them all the more appealing. If you find yourself having a daily face-off with the office biscuit jar, you're more likely to want to binge by the end of the week. The key to sustainable and healthy weight loss is to learn mindful eating. If you can eat mindfully, savouring every bite, then you'll be able to enjoy your favourite foods in moderation and avoid putting on weight.

Significantly, a key part of hypnosis for weight loss is helping clients to eat consciously - putting emotional factors aside and develop a stable relationship with food that promotes a healthy weight, long-term.

You don't exercise enough

Exercise is just as important as diet when it comes to losing weight. Sometimes mental blocks can stop us wanting to exercise, including:

Feeling a lack of energy

Feeling too self-conscious to exercise in public

Convincing yourself you'll 'go tomorrow' (every day).

Weight loss hypnotherapy can help you break down those mental blocks that are stopping you from making the most of your body. More often than not, getting your body moving and your heart pumping will make you feel better about yourself in general, leading to healthier behaviours and happiness in the long-term.

Will hypnotherapy for weight loss work for me?

One of the most commonly asked questions in hypnotherapy consultations is - will hypnotherapy for weight loss work for me? The answer to that is it's hard to know until you try it yourself. While it certainly won't work in the same way for everyone, the process of talking about developing good habits, and getting rid of bad habits, should help plant a new level of awareness when it comes to food and exercise.

An important thing to remember is that hypnotherapy is a complementary therapy, and therefore should be used alongside a healthy eating plan and exercise regime. If you want advice about eating better and exercising, you may find it useful to speak to your doctor or a nutrition professional. It is often a combined effort of all these things that leads to success.

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